As I wrote in my last post, your website’s ranking on Google and other search engines is influenced through off-site and on-site SEO.

While there are a number of actions you can be done as part of on-site SEO, some are more technical than others and may require assistance from your web developer. Notwithstanding that there are some relatively simple steps you can take to give yourself some advantage over your competitors.

Please note that when we talk about keywords this could mean a single word such as ‘shed’ or a key phrase containing multiple words such as ‘best garden sheds’.

Step 1: use your keywords in the right on-site SEO elements

If a website is all about home theatre equipment, it won’t be found for the keyword “home improvement” even if it has thousands of backlinks. The keywords that you choose for your web pages are very important:

Target only one or two keywords on each web page. If your web page is very relevant to a single keyword it will receive a higher ranking than if it has just some relevance to many keywords.

Make sure the keyword is in the title tag of your web page as this is a strong signal to search engines that the web page is relevant for that keyword.

Use the keyword in a heading tag (preferably a H1 and H2 heading) on your web page.

Images on web pages should contain the keyword or related keywords in the file name, alt text and title. You should include at least one image on every page.

Your page content must contain the keywords that you want to be found for. Always write content for people, not for search engines. Over optimized content is terrible to read so use your keywords in a natural manner.

Keyword overuse can look like you are spamming. For that reason, it is very important that you find the right balance. The SEO website plugin we install with every website will not only allow you to easily enter the data mentioned in step 1, it will also give your page a ranking as to how well you have done. In addition, the instructional videos we provide will teach you how to use the plugin effectively.

Step 2: make it easy for the Google robot to index your web pages

Internal links on your web pages should utilise keywords that are relevant to your business and to the page that it is linking to. An example would be hyperlinking search engine optimisation tips rather than the nondescript “click here”.

Navigation should be easy to find, logical and intuitive.

High quality web design is important.

Web pages should load as quickly as possible – keep the file size of images as small as practical. There are some great free tools available for preparing images.

If you add great quality content and apply these principles to each and every page of your website you will see an improvement over time. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. For a more comprehensive list of what on-site SEO activities can be undertaken, take a look at the infographic below. You can click on it to view a larger version.